Breadwinners in prison 1

It was a cool Saturday evening, January 23, 2014. It happened to be another special day at the Ikoyi Prison in Lagos. Ordinarily, inmates are restricted or confined to their cells, but this day was delightedly different. The prison author­ities had organised end-of-year-cum-thanksgiv­ing service for them and it was like a big breather, a huge relief from their daily routine of incarcer­ation. However, amid the merriment, there was an un­usual, yet interesting little drama at a corner. Some inmates were giving money to those later identi­fied as either wives or close family members. Dis­creet enquiry revealed that the monies were meant as upkeep of the families. Obviously, these male inmates have continued to cater for their families even as they remain in prison. How do they get the money they are sending home, one would ask? A warder, who does not want his name mentioned, said that the monies are got from sale of products of these inmates, like art works, crafts and such creative objects. They also receive monetary gift from visitors. “You know some of these inmates, instead of thinking all day inside their cells, they go to learn vocational skills in creative art like painting, carv­ing…they learn carpentry and the like. When they have mastered and produce these items, they put them on display and visitors come to buy and these things fetch them good money,” said the warder. He added: “We use to keep the money for them. But upon request, prison authorities do release the money to them. Some of these inmates you see here are still the breadwinners of their families.” This, however, is the practice in other prisons across the country, according to the prison official. “Are you surprised or shocked that prison in­mates are sending money to their families back home? It is a common practice. Some of the in­mates are wise. They keep the money some visitors give to them, and not only that, the money they also realised from the sale of their works they carry out inside the prison for which they are given a stipend are also kept with warders. But whenever the need arises for them to require or demand part of it, we do release it to them,” he said. The warder further added that some of the in­mates’ family members are confronted with vari­ous problems ranging from how to pay school fees of their children, accommodation and sundry ex­penses. While confirming the warder’s narration, a hu­man rights activist who was present at the event, Barrister Gabriel Giwa-Amu, toldSaturday Sunthat it has now become common practice for prison inmates to send money home to feed their family members. “Although it appears to be a great irony, for those in confinement to be feeding those people that are walking free, that tells you a lot about our nation. God save Nigeria,” he said. While saying that he was initially skeptical when he heard the story, Giwa-Amu said he later made independent investigations, which confirmed it. “I was able to confirm it from both the inmates and the prison authorities. They told me that they have to send money home to feed their families be­cause they don’t want them to die of starvation and hunger, as there was nobody to take care of them in their absence,” he said. Speaking further the human rights activist said: “I believe that this is an eye-opener to our leaders, that all is not well with our society. Imagine some­body in incarceration feeding free members of the society; it says a lot about our system and our lead­ers. I can now see that this is one of the reasons some prison inmates would tell us, whenever we are on advocacy visits to their cells, that they pre­fer prison to their homes – because in prison, ac­cording to them, they have access to free feed, they don’t have to worry about house rent, and other challenging needs.” While confirming that prison inmates are al­lowed to send money to their loved ones at home, the spokesman, Nigerian Prison Service, Mr. Ope Fatinikun said: “Some prison inmates are often overwhelmed with family problems requiring fi­nancial intervention, and when this happens and they approach us to have access to part of their money in our custody, we do allow them to make the withdrawal. “But before they are allowed, they will have to sign a paper or a document as an evidence or proof that they have withdrawn or are withdraw­ing part of their money in our custody. On several occasions, those saved sums come handy to them whenever their loved ones have challenges requir­ing financial solution. We have an officer that is in charge of this.” He said prison inmates are also encouraged to make sure that they don’t engaged in lavish spend­ing in order to have some savings that might be of assistance to them when they go home after serving their sentence. “Since these inmates are fed free with free accommodation, free medical services and other benefits, they are encouraged to save their money,” he declared.